stars – Astronomy Now

Open clusters Messier 29 and 39: Cygnus’ star cities

26 August 2024 Mark Armstrong

Amid all the wonderful nebulae that Cygnus has to offer lie Messier 29 and 39, two fine open clusters which are both easily visible through a pair of binoculars against a marvellous Milky Way backdrop as they ride high on late summer nights.

Clouds of stars

8 June 2022 Keith Cooper

The greatest survey yet of the Milky Way Galaxy’s two main satellites, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds has resolved an astonishing 360 million objects – stars, clusters and nebulae.

Iron-poor star hints at nature of first-generation suns

2 August 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found an exceptionally iron-poor star that may represent second-generation suns born in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang

Mapping the family tree of stars

25 February 2017 Stephen Clark

Astronomers are borrowing principles applied in biology and archaeology to build a family tree of the stars in the galaxy. By studying chemical signatures found in the stars, they are piecing together these evolutionary trees looking at how the stars formed and how they are connected to each other.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Stars and Nebulae

20 September 2016 Astronomy Now

The award winning entries in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016 competition in the category ‘Stars and Nebulae’. The winners were announced on 15th September at an award ceremony at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

A billion stars: Gaia’s first map of the Milky Way

15 September 2016 Keith Cooper

Gaia, the space probe that has been mapping a billion stars in the Galaxy following its launch by the European Space Agency (ESA) in December 2013, has revealed its first revolutionary data.

A moon and stars at Saturn

23 July 2016 Astronomy Now

Numerous stars provide a serene background in this view of Saturn’s moon Enceladus captured by the Cassini spacecraft while the moon was in eclipse, within the ringed planet’s shadow.

Massive galaxies died from the inside out

16 April 2015 Keith Cooper

Some of the biggest galaxies in the Universe started to shut down their star-formation from the inside-out ten billion years ago, according to new observations made using the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft proves it can still find planets

19 December 2014 Astronomy Now

When the primary mission of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft ended in May 2013 due to a failure of its stabilisation system, a team of scientists and engineers developed an ingenious strategy to control the spacecraft. The resulting second mission, K2, has a newfound planet — HIP 116454b

New interactive website tools for observers

8 December 2014 Ade Ashford

Astronomy Now Online brings you a powerful interactive global Almanac and UK-based all-sky star maps — the first of a new suite of tools to help plan your observing sessions and travel.